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Operation 40

(Oswald did it, right?)

All Things Cuba Directed from JM/WAVE Miami...

The Cuban Task Force:

-December 11, 1959: Colonel J. C. King, chief of CIA's Western Hemisphere Division, memorandum to Allen Dulles, CIA Director stating that a "far-left dictatorship, which if allowed to remain will encourage similar actions against U.S. holdings in other Latin American countries."

-Operation 40 run by Richard M. Nixon.

-Tracy Barnes assigned as operating officer.

Vice President Richard M. Nixon

Presided over Operation 40

E. Howard Hunt, CIA

Jake Esterline, CIA

Tracy Barnes, CIA

Chief Operating Officer

David Atlee Phillips, CIA

Frank Bender aka Gerry Droller

The CIA assembled virtually the same team that was involved in the removal of Arbenz in Guatemala : Tracey Barnes, Richard Bissell, David Morales, David Atlee Phillips, E. Howard Hunt, Rip Robertson and Henry Hecksher. Added to this list was several agents who had been involved in undercover operations in Germany: Ted Shackley, Tom Clines and William Harvey.

Richard J. Bisell

Henry Hecksher

Rip Robertson

Shackley

Clines

Harvey

Schlesinger's Memo

June 9, 1961

MEMORANDUM FOR MR. RICHARD GOODWIN

Sam Halper, who has been the Times correspondent in Habana and more recently in Miami, came to see me last week. He has excellent contracts among the Cuban exiles. One of Miro's comments this morning reminded me that I have been meaning to pass on the following story as told me by Halper. Halper says that CIA set up something called Operation 40 under the direction of a man named (as he recalled) Captain Luis Sanjenis, who was also chief of intelligence. (Could this be the man to whom Miro referred this morning?) It was called Operation 40 because originally only 40 men were involved: later the group was enlarged to 70. The ostensible purpose of Operation 40 was to administerliberated territories in Cuba. But the CIA agent in charge, a man known as Felix, trained the members of the group in methods of third degree interrogation, torture and general terrorism. The liberal Cuban exiles believe that the real purpose of Operation 40 was to "kill Communists" and, after eliminating hard-core Fidelistas, to go on to eliminate first the followers of Ray, then the followers of Varona and finally to set up a right wing dictatorship, presumably under Artime. Varona fired Sanjenis as chief of intelligence after the landings and appointed a man named Despaign in his place. Sanjenis removed 40 files and set up his own office; the exiles believe that hecontinues to have CIA support. As for the intelligence operation, the CIA is alleged to have said that, if Varona fired Sanjenis, let Varona pay the bills. Subsequently Sanjenis's hoods beat up Despaign's chief aide; and Despaign himself was arrested on a charge of trespassing brought by Sanjenis. The exiles believe that all these things had CIA approval. Halper says that Lt Col Vireia Castro (1820 SW 6th Street, Miami; FR 4 3684) can supply further details. Halper also quotes Bender as having said at one point when someone talked about the Cuban revolution against Castro: "The Cuban Revolution? The Cuban Revolution is something I carry around in my checkbook. "Nice fellows,

Operation 40

George Bush and Féliz Rodríguez

According to Fabian Escalante, a senior officer of the Cuban Department of State Security (G-2), in 1960 Richard Nixon recruited an "important group of businessmen headed by George Bush (Snr.) and Jack Crichton, both Texas oilmen, to gather the necessary funds for the operation". (2) This suggests that Operation 40 agents were involved in freelance work.

It is known that at this time that George Bush and Jack Crichton were involved in covert right-wing activities. In 1990 The Common Cause magazine argued that: "The CIA put millionaire and agent George Bush in charge of recruiting exiled Cubans for the CIA’s invading army; Bush was working with another Texan oil magnate, Jack Crichton, who helped him in terms of the invasion." (3) This story was linked to the release of "a memorandum in that context addressed to FBI chief J. Edward Hoover and signed November 1963, which reads: Mr. George Bush of the CIA" (4)Reinaldo Taladrid and Lazaro Baredo claim that in 1959 George Bush was asked “to cooperate in funding the nascent anti-Castro groups that the CIA decided to create”. The man “assigned to him for his new mission” was Féliz Rodríguez. (5)

"Well FRANK, this is strictly a voluntary thing, if you

want to talk with us, if you don't want to talk with us' -

And they told me that they felt I was one of the persons

capable, if I wanted to assassinate somebody as high as the

President of the United States, that I was capable of --

Canfield: You were approached though to do assassination

jobs -

STURGIS: Oh yeah. Also an associate. And it can be proven

that he is, or rather was, at that time, a CIA agent.

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve
been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle.
We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured
us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been
taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it
back.”

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been
bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle.
We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has
captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves,
that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you
almost never get it back.”